


Shock Treatment

by Severina



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 19:25:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hair is tinged with grey now, and slightly less poofy than in the ragged family photo that John keeps in his wallet, but she's still a beautiful woman.  Matt kind of wants to hate her on sight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shock Treatment

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's smallfandomfest community, for the prompt "haze of pain"
> 
> * * *

Matt wakes up slowly, seemingly one corpuscle at a time. At some point he's aware there's pain just hovering on the horizon, but for now he's mostly floating above it, drifting on a haze of what must be really impressive painkillers. He stares at the light shining through the blinds for an undecipherable amount of time before remembering that John is in the next bed, recovering from his own surgery – and hopefully coasting on his own mix of remarkable pharmaceuticals. Even with what he knows about HMOs, illegal drug testing and doctors who remove the wrong internal organs, Matt decides right then and there that he adores the medical profession.

He moves his head slowly through the marshmallow cloud that surrounds his pillow, blinks at John's empty bed and the woman sitting in the chair next to it, idly thumbing through a magazine. The hair is tinged with grey now, and slightly less poofy than in the ragged family photo that John keeps in his wallet, but she's still a beautiful woman. Matt kind of wants to hate her on sight.

"Wow, okay, that was natural," he says – or slurs, but they really are super impressive painkillers. "I thought you just had like one of those '80's perms. You know, back in the day."

Holly looks up, smiles easily at him as sets the magazine aside. "All natural," she agrees. She's got a rich, warm voice – the kind that he can imagine soothing away all manner of aches and pains. He doesn't like to think about the kind of soothing she may have done with McClane. She stands up, takes a step toward his bed. "How are you feeling?"

Matt frowns. His knee feels like it's swelled by a factor of approximately eight hundred percent and is currently on fire, but the fire is being smothered by a block of ice. It's weird and more annoying than anything else. He knows that the pain is being held below the surface by the really great drugs, and at some point he's probably going to be crying like a baby. But right now he's just sort of hovering above it all. 

Matt opens eyes that he didn't realize he'd closed, blinks at Holly who has somehow retaken her seat while he considered the implications of having his knee held together by a bunch of tiny pins. "I'm okay," he says. And then, because he's supposed to hate her even though she's sitting there smiling pleasantly and asking about his health, and also because a side-effect of the really great drugs seems to be the erosion of the already flimsy filter that exists between his brain and his mouth, he adds, "You're kind of stupid."

Holly's eyebrow rises in a way that reminds him eerily of John. Or maybe Lucy. The entire family probably gets together every other weekend to practice sardonic eyebrow lifts. "It usually takes someone at least fifteen minutes of talking to me before they insult me," she says.

"You know what it was like," Matt says sullenly.

Holly's brow furrows, and she rises again to step toward his bed. Matt really wants to flinch away from her hand, because of how he's supposed to dislike her and all, but her palm is cool and soft on his forehead. She smoothes his hair back out of his eyes, smiles gently down at him. "Sweetheart," she says, "you've had a rough couple of days. Why don’t you just—"

"Yes!" Matt says. "Yes, see? A very rough couple of days! _You_ know! And yet you had John McClane, and you left him! Just threw him away like a piece of trash!"

"Is that what John told you?" Holly asks. She raises a brow again, this time going for skeptical – and nailing it. "That's not exactly how—"

"Threw him away!" Matt repeats loudly. Okay, so maybe he knows nothing about the McClane Gennero divorce, but somehow he's sure it was Holly who made the ultimate bonehead move. He shakes his head. "You know what I would do if I had John McClane?"

Holly's smiling at him again. "What would you do?"

For a moment Matt is confused, because the first thing he would probably do is jump up and down and grin goofily and clap his hands like a seal. He's not sure that those antics would keep a guy like John McClane around. Then he remembers, and his brow clears. "I would make sure he didn't have to eat his meals alone," Matt says.

"What would you make him?"

"I said eat, not cook," Matt says irritably. "Word choice. It matters!"

"Of course," Holly says solemnly. "My apologies."

Matt frowns again at the amused look on her face. Words _do_ matter. And so does food. And John. John matters the most. He leans back on the pillow, happy with that train of thought. He blinks sleepily. "And I would be there for him when he needed me. I would… I would remind him that he's doing all those crazy things for a reason. I'd help him when I could. And I'd give him massages when he got home. And I'd make him laugh." He regards Holly seriously. "McClane really needs to lighten up."

"I agree. I think you'd be just the ticket. I know you're entertaining me." 

Matt nods quickly, remembering something else. "I also give really good blow jobs."

Holly laughs, a surprised burst of sound. She pats him lightly on the arm. "Did you tell him that?"

"Pffft," Matt says. He tries to wave a hand, winces and glances down at the tangle of IV lines taped to his arm. He settles for waving a finger. "He's straight."

It occurs to him suddenly that Holly is visiting John even though they've been apart for centuries. That she still must care about the guy, at least a little, and him about her. That maybe they actually talk… and she might be inclined to share everything he's been saying about his ridiculous crush on John McClane. Things that just might offend John's macho sensibilities. Things that might result in him getting a punch in the nose, though the mortification would be worse than the broken bones.

He reaches out with his good arm, flailing for her. "Please don't tell!"

Holly's eyes flick behind him. Where, he remembers, there's a door that leads to a tiny bathroom. And an explanation for where John's been all this time.

"Hey, kid," John says.

Matt closes his eyes, struggles to turn his head through the nest of cotton batten that apparently surrounds him. He opens them to find John leaning against the railing of his bed, one arm wrapped in a stiff sling. Underneath the gauze he knows John has some pins in his shoulder that match the ones in his knee. 

"Oh shit," Matt moans. "I really like you a lot and I'm a super nice guy so please don't kill me."

"Not gonna kill ya," John says. 

Matt frowns, squinches his eyes shut quickly and presses his head back into the pillow as much as he can when John suddenly looms down into his field of vision. John can _say_ he's not going to kill him, but John also had a fist-fight with a ninja on an SUV dangling in an elevator shaft and came out on top, so he's pretty sure John McClane could kill measly scrawny little him just by looking at him funny. 

So he prepares himself for the inevitable, but only feels a soft wet moisture on his face.

Matt opens one eye, squints up at him. "Did you just kiss my nose?"

John pats a hand on his shoulder. "Get better soon, kid, so I can start working my way down."

The nurse bustles into the room before Matt can do more than blink up at John's smirking face. By the time she's done fussing with his IV tube, there's been another blissful icy shot of Demerol to push down the pain and Matt realizes he's spent a good ten minutes just staring at his hands and grinning goofily. 

But if he had the ability to jump up and down and clap, he'd totally do it.


End file.
